The Sleeper Wakes
by Syn2
Summary: A really short, really twisted Darla/Gunn story. Weird, I know.....


Title: The Sleeper Wakes  
Author: Syn  
Rating: R Some seriously suggestive/disturbing stuff going on here  
Disclaimer: Relax, I'm just playing with them.  
Archive: Take it, spread the love.  
Summary: A *really short*, twisted Darla/Gunn piece. Set in Season Two, I guess.  
A/N: I'm not a Darla/Gunn shipper in any way, I just had to get this out of my head. A while back I read this interview with Julie Benz about how she had this awesome chemistry with J. August Richards and how they couldn't look at each other during scenes because the sparks were like, so obvious. Well, after that, I had images of Gunn and Darla in my head and it was beginning to bother me. So, hence this fic and maybe now I'll be purged. Let's all pray.   
  
Feedback is welcome, appreciated and handsomly rewarded by shiny apples.  
  
***************  
  
Her lips swept across his cheek, her fingers following closely behind, running lightly across the dark, stubbled skin. Soft wisps of blonde hair fell across his eyes, the creased lids and brown, dormant orbs not moving even a fraction of an inch.  
  
She sat back, her fingers playing with the edges of his shirt, dipping slowly back into the soft folds to touch cold, ebony muscles. His hands, strong, wide and callused, were clenched in his lap, blood showing on the palms where his nails had dug in. She smiled and picked up one brown fist and splayed the stiff fingers, her tongue darting out and probing the tiny half-moon punctures.   
  
He tasted like spices and smoke. Another smile, quick, predatory and sharp flitted across her regal features. Blue eyes darted down to the ashen face before her, his supple lips opened slightly in mid-scream. Blood was sprayed across his cheeks where she hadn't had a chance to kiss it off yet. Her eyes darted down to mass of sinew and pulpy meat that had been his neck. Blood was slowly drying in splashes and slashes across the green linoleum of the hotel floor.  
  
His blood. Strong blood, she thought as she curled up cat-like next to him, her fingers still probing the stiff muscles below the soft shirt. She had the sudden urge to pull it off his frame so she could see the expanse of muscle and the flat male nipples that lay beneath. She imagined he was beautiful beneath the layers, like dark marble and just as hard.  
  
Harder, still, she pushed her fingernails into the skin and imagined him screaming like he had done just hours before.   
  
His eyes were going glossy and clouded and she stared into them, wondering if those brown eyes had ever been studied so hard and long. Had he ever let anyone else get this close? Let them touch him when he wasn't looking, couldn't do anything about? Had he ever bared his soul like he'd done with her?  
  
A tilt of her head and she stared quizzically at his strong features, wondering why so beautiful a man had so many demons. To her, he was a stranger; she didn't understand his ways. He should have been laughing, carefree and away from this life, but he wasn't. He chose to fight her kind and he suffered this pain because of it. He chose to stand alongside Angel and she'd taken him because of it.   
  
What made him tick? She was intrigued by him...perhaps that's why she'd done it.   
  
As she lay there, she wondered if she'd done it to get back at Angel, or because of something deeper. A longing she saw in his deep brown eyes as he'd glared at her. The move of his hands toward her, stake held in a loose clutch so she could kick it away easily. Had he wanted it? Asked her to do this with a plea he didn't even know he was making?  
  
She wasn't sure.   
  
Her tongue darted out once more to kiss at his chest where she had rested her head. The lungs were silent, still and yet she imagined the rise and fall as she emulated that last suck of breath he'd taken. The rattle still echoed in her ears, mingling and tainting the other memories of similar deaths. They mixed until there was a band of breathing, rasping skeletons dancing in her memory, taunting her and telling her she should be mourning them.   
  
But she didn't.   
  
She smiled, wide and red, her tongue sweeping against his bloody cheeks to savor his smoky taste one more time. One more time and then she'd have to leave him here.   
  
Her eyes swept across the vast cavern of the lobby, dust motes dancing in the air and clinging to everything tangible. They'd be back soon and they'd have to see what she'd done. The little message she'd left for Angel and his band of do-gooders. A disgusted snort left her mouth and crackled in the air for an echoing moment.  
  
Would Angel mourn him? Would he hang his head and fall to his knees, cursing her name and vowing revenge on her?   
  
Probably and rightfully so, she reckoned, her fingers once again kneading back into the muscles and skimming across the top of his jeans. She dared her thumbs to dip down further, to graze across the supple bulge below the belt and into the rough folds of denim bunched and gathered in strategic places. Her fingers, lightly and gently, splayed across and dipped, slid and defined the soft, cold bulge until her eyes widened.   
  
Her lips once again fluttered across the dark skin on his cheek and she forced her eyes closed, fingers gathering more courage and stroking harder, wishing the limp muscles would respond and grow harder beneath her fingertips.   
  
Nothing. His eyes were still staring, mouth screaming up at the ceiling. A needless sigh escaped her lips and she sat up, her blonde hair matted with his blood and falling thickly across her own cheeks in pink slashes.  
  
She stood, knowing it was time to go and not wanting to leave him there, prone on the floor. It seemed dirty to her for something so beautiful to be such a cruel stain. Her mouth pulled into a frown and she bent to her knees, her fingers stretching out and pulling his eyelids down to hide the view of those clouded brown eyes. She closed his mouth with the same careful measure and looked once more, hungrily and longingly, at the peaceful expression on his face.  
  
He'd asked for this, she thought. She knew he had. His screams had been peppered with pleas and silent thank you's, his clutching fingers at her shoulders urging, not pushing. His rough palms had been gentle on her face, not harsh.   
  
Yes, he'd wanted what she'd had to give him. Wanted it and feared it and asked for it with everything in him. So she'd given it to him with a promise of making the hurt go away, making the pain to stop until he asked for it again.   
  
She stood once more and moved to walk away, out of the hotel and away from the chaos and pain she was going to leave behind for Angel to find. And suddenly, she stopped, the sudden urge to bring him with her and keep him by her side rising in her chest and cutting off all other thoughts.   
  
But that wasn't the plan. He was just a message for Angel, expendable and just for the hell of it.   
  
A glance over her shoulder and she stared back at the beautiful stain of his body lying on the floor. No, he was special. She couldn't leave him for that. He'd work as a message just as well in her arms, where she could hold him and learn the depths of those beautiful eyes, see the sharp smile that would come with waking and the pain slide away from his features with the face of the demon.  
  
So, Darla stayed, waiting in the lair of her enemy until the sleeper woke. She curled up against the cold, dead body of Charles Gunn and waited, her fingers playing across muscles that she imagined teaming with life and pushing hard against her, dark fingertips circling over ivory skin and ruby red lips. She imagined knowing the mind behind the man, the motivation behind the actions. She'd know it all and keep him by her side.  
  
Darla smiled and waited.  
  
(End)  
  
**************** 


End file.
